Numerous patents exist for the production of combustible gases by underliquid electric arcs between carbon-base electrodes, such as: the combustible gas disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 603,058 to H. Eldridge; the combustible gas disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,159,900 and 5,417,817 to W. A. Dammann and D. Wallman; the combustible gas disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,435,274, 5,692,459, 5,792,325 to W. H. Richardson, Jr.; the combustible gas disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,183,604 to R. M. Santilli; and others.
In all the above patents, the combustible gas is produced via an electric arc between a pair of electrodes of which at least one is made of carbon-base material immersed within water or a water-base liquid feedstock. The arc vaporizes the liquid and the carbon-base electrode, by forming a plasma of mostly ionized H, O, C and other atoms at about 10,000 degrees F. Besides a number of secondary thermochemical reactions depending on the selected method, the affinity between C and O dominates over the corresponding affinities between H and C or H and O, resulting in the formation of CO. The residual H atoms then generally combine to form the hydrogen gas H2. The resulting gas is then composed by CO and H2 in various proportions depending on the selected method as well as on the selected liquid feedstock.
The extremely high magnetic fields existing at atomic distances of the electric arc deform the orbitals of the atomic components of the combustible gas.
The combustible gases produced by an underliquid electric arc in the invention described herein are clean burning combustible gases. It should be indicated that these gases generally vary with the liquid feedstock evidently because of differences in the atomic structures. For instance, the gas produced from water as liquid feedstock is dramatically different than the gas produced by using an oil-base liquid feedstock. This is due to the fact that the former is clean burning because it is essentially composed by hydrogen and carbon monoxide, while the later is highly polluting being essentially composed by heavy hydrocarbon due to the general absence of oxygen in oil.
One of the main objectives of this invention is to reach a clean burning combustible gas for all possible liquid feedstocks. As explained in detail below, this result is achieved by adding to the electric arc plasma the substance missing in the liquid feedstock for the achievement of a clean burning combustible gas. For instance, the proper addition of oxygen to the electric arc plasma when using an oil-base liquid feedstock produces a clean burning combustible gas essentially similar to that produced from water as a liquid feedstock.
Generally, the combustible gases produced by underwater electric arcs can be clean because they generally contain no hydrocarbons, while CO is part of the combustible gas itself, rather than a byproduct of the combustion as it is the case for fossil fuels. Under ideal conditions of perfect combustion, the exhaust of combustible gases produced via underliquid electric arcs has no measurable hydrocarbons or toxic substances such as CO, while being essentially constituted by water vapor, oxygen, carbon dioxide and atmospheric gases. Therefore, the combustible gases addressed in this invention do have a large ecological importance.
The absence of a conventional molecular structure for the gas under consideration here can be proved as follows. Consider the production of a combustible gas via electric arcs submerged in ordinary water as feedstock. In this case, conventional thermochemistry teaches that said gas can only be composed of 50% CO and 50% H2. This prediction is immediately disproved by measurements in the exhaust. In fact, had the prediction be correct, the exhaust should have at least 40% CO2, while clear and repeated measurement have established that the exhaust contains about 7% of CO, thus implying that the gas contains about 10% of CO as conventionally referred to, namely, with a triple valence bond. Additional spectrographic measurements have established that the remaining 40% is present in combustible gas partly as isolated C and O atoms, partly as C—O in single valence bond, and partly as C═O in double valence bond, all bonded together into magnecular clusters. At the time of combustion only the triple valence bond CO is oxidized into CO2, while the single and double valence bonds of C and O decompose because of their instability, thus explaining the presence in the exhaust of up to 15% oxygen.
In this invention we shall assume the definition of anode and cathode as generally used in batteries, according to which the anode is negatively charged and the cathode is positively charged, in which case the electrons of the DC electric current move from the negatively charged anode to the positively charged cathode. When we have a DC electric arc, the electrons exit the anode and hit the cathode, thus causing a temperature of the cathode which is much greater than that of the anode evidently caused by the collision of the electrons with the individual atoms of the cathode, collisions which are generally absent for the anode. This is the reason why, under certain power limitations identified below, the anode can be fabricated with temperature resistant metals such as tungsten, while no such metal is usable for the cathode due to its higher temperature. As a result carbon rods are generally used for the cathode evidently because carbon is conducting and has a melting point much greater than that of tungsten. It should be indicated that other definitions of the polarities of anodes and cathode exist in the art, jointly with different definitions for the flow of DC current. This is the reason why, to avoid possible confusion, we have identified above both the assumed polarities of anodes and cathodes as well as the actual direction of motion of the electrons.
As a matter of consistency only, the cathode, as defined and used in the specifications herein, will sometimes be referred to as the first electrode and accordingly, the second electrode will sometimes be referred to as the second electrode.
Also, we shall at times use the generic term of “electrodes” because of the possibility of using an AC, rather than a DC current, in which case any differentiation between anode and cathode is evidently inessential.
Carbon-base electrodes are rapidly consumed as a necessary condition to provide the carbon necessary for the thermochemical reactions occurring in the formation of the combustible gas from a water soluble feedstock. For instance, a DC electric arc between 1″ diameter carbon-base rod electrodes within water or water soluble liquid feedstock powered by a 50 Kwh DC generator generally consumes the consumable (or sacrificial) electrode (positively charges cathode as assumed above) at the rate of about 1 linear inch per minute, corresponding to the consumption of about 0.76 cubic inches (ci) of carbon per minute or about 47 ci of carbon per hour. By noting that 50 Kwh generally produces 500 cubic feet (cf) of combustible gas per hour, the consumption of carbon per cubic foot of the produced gas is of the order of 0.1 ci/cf.
In all cases, the consumption of the negatively charged anode is generally minimal and about 1/10th that of the rate of consumption of the cathode.
A first major insufficiency of the above methods is that, due to said rapid consumption, carbon-base electrodes are continuously fed into the vessel through seals. Such embodiments can only deliver the current to the arc via bushing sliding under pressure along said carbon-base electrodes. In turn, such an arrangement implies severe limitations in the amount of deliverable electric current, with consequential inability to built large units operating with hundreds of Kwh.
A second insufficiency of pre-existing embodiments is that the sliding of the electrodes through seals into the vessel containing the liquid feedstock implies the impossibility of building equipment operating at high pressure due to the notorious weakness of sealing sliding carbon rods. In turn, this implies a loss of efficiency because the volume of the produced gas is known to increase with the increase of the operating pressure.
A third limitation of pre-existing patents on underliquid electric arcs is in the use of electrodes composed of a heat resistant metal such as tungsten. Tungsten can only be used for the anode as well as only for powers not to exceed 50 Kwh. In fact, the cathode reaches temperatures beyond the melting point of tungsten due to the fact that the electrons of the DC current move from the anode to the cathode, thus producing in the latter higher temperatures due to the collision of said electrons in the cathode. Also, for powers in excess of 50 Kwh the temperature of the cathode itself becomes bigger than the melting point of tungsten. Therefore, tungsten base electrodes are not industrially viable.
A fourth limitation of pre-existing patents is their inability to produce a clean burning combustible gas when using oil as a feedstock. This is due to the fact that oil has the chemical structure CnH2n with the general lack of oxygen. It is then evident that the use of carbon-base or tungsten electrodes cannot produce a clean burning combustible gas when using oil as feedstock precisely in view of the absence of oxygen.
A fifth limitation of pre-existing patents is their inability to control the relative percentages of CO and H2 in the produced combustible gas, which limitation is due to the availability of essentially fixed electrodes per each given liquid feedstock.
The scope of this invention is that of resolving all these limitations of the electrodes in pre-existing patents utilizing underliquid electric arcs.